Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

by Patty Krawec

In the United States and Canada, institutions are beginning to talk about improving relationships between institutions and Indigenous peoples. They call it “decolonizing.” Churches, colleges, and settler organizations are beginning to recognize the colonial history of these countries and are trying to improve their relationships with Indigenous peoples. But decolonizing is not another word for anti-racism or anti-oppression; it is not just another way of saying diversity and inclusion. As Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang remind us, decolonization is not a metaphor. We could be the most anti-racist society on earth, but as long as America relies on stolen land and the displacement of Indigenous people, it will remain a colonial state. Decolonizing means returning the land to the people from whom it was taken.